Wes and I ran out into the basement hallway to find Declan and Sage already there. The looks on their faces clearly showed how surprised and panicked they were feeling.

"What the hell was that?" Declan asked looking at the two of us.

"Wasn't us, it came from the first-floor," Wes answered so quickly that most of the words blended together.

I looked at Sage and Declan and realized we were missing a few people.

"Wheres Lolly and Lucas, or Alicia?" I asked them.

I was starting to grow more worried by the second. The scream had died off but the high pitch sound still echoed in my head. It sounded like one of those horror movie screams, and just thinking of it brought goosebumps to my skin.

Sage was nodding at me, as if agreeing with me before she answered, "Lucas and Lolly went for some alone time, I don't know where Alicia is."

That was all it took to make Wes and Declan take off in a full sprint towards the stairs, with Sage and I right on their heels. We ran up the stairs and burst through the first-floor door. When we made it around the corner going into the main hall, we spotted Lolly and Lucas at the other end staring at something on the floor. It didn't take us long to run the entire length of the hall to reach them. But once we got within a few feet of them I started to slow down, my eyes immediately were drawn to the floor.

At the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor, laid big Betty and her brother Toby.

Betty's warn and ripped teal dress flared out around her, while her dull brown hair covered her face. Toby was only a couple feet away, in a wrinkled tan suit that looked two sizes too small for him. But it wasn't their clothes that caught my attention, it was the blood.

Blood surrounded both their bodies and merged together so it was hard to tell who's was who's. But it was easy to see the massive hole to the side of Toby's head, and Betty's mangled leg that was turned in the wrong direction. Even worse than that was the completely vacant look in Toby's open eyes. It was like he was permanently doomed to stare at the ceiling above. I couldn't see Betty's eyes, but I had the horrible feeling that they would look the same way.

"Dear God, Lucas, what happened?" Wes asked, his eyes so wide they took up most of his face.

Lucas stepped back, hands raised out in front of him, "We didn't do this, man. They were like this when we got here."

Lolly turned and wrapped her small hands around my arm, "I swear, Chloe, we heard the scream while we were making out in the stairwell. We got here right before you guys did." 

Her big brown eyes pleaded with me to believe her.

It may have sounded weird to some, but I did believe her. Lolly was eccentric and a little over the top, and yeah, she killed her mom. But that was her demon side, not her, and this wasn't her either. Even Lucas, filled with a fiery rage, wouldn't lie about this. I felt their stories to be true, all the way down to my bones and was willing to bet my life on their innocence. Too bad it wasn't my judgment that mattered.

The sound of many footsteps and several voices echoed at the tops of the stairs next to us. We would have company soon, and there was no way we would be fast enough to run away. So we stood there, staring at the bodies in front of us like we hadn't a hope in the world, and that was how we were found when Ms.Pierce, Mr. B, and several other students and guards arrived.

The students screamed and ran back up the stairs while the guards immediately grabbed the six of us and threw us against the walls. Ms. Pierce was on a cell phone right away while the sounds of screams and shouts filled the air. I felt numb, my body, my mind, everything was too much. The feeling of cuffs being slapped around my wrists barely registered to me. With our arms bound behind our backs, the guards forced all of us to kneel on the floor along the wall. One of them spoke about back up being on the way I couldn't help but wonder why. Why would they need back up? We didn't do it and even if it looked that way, we were already contained. Whatever had happened was done.

It was only the sound of Ms.Pierce's voice that brought me out of my numb daze.

She crouched in front of me, phone gone, and grabbed me by the shoulders, "Chloe, what happened?"

I shook my head, unable to think of words.

"This isn't a joke Chloe! Those kids are dead and the organization has already been notified. They think you all are too dangerous and they're going to take you all away. I need to know what happened!" she said, shaking my shoulders.

This news made something click on in my mind and I locked eyes with her. She was pleading with me, desperate for me to give her an answer.

"We didn't do it, Ms. Pierce. We were in the basement, having our own dance. When we heard the screams we came running but it was too late!" I told her, my entire body changing from numb to panicked.

Ms. Pierce looked up and down the hall as if she was expecting something to happen at any moment, something big. When she didn't find whatever she was looking for she looked back at me and her voice lowered to barely a whisper, "I believe you. I'll figure something out."

She stood up and began pacing the hall, walking back and forth in front of where we all sat on the floor. The guards still surrounded us like we would break loose of our cuffs and try to run or attack them. The scene around us was frozen like this for only a few short minutes before the front door of Landry's burst open and a group of men in SWAT gear stormed the hall.

They relieved the guards of their positions and snatched each of us up off the floor. One by one the SWAT men marched us down the hall, through the metal detectors, and out the front doors. Just outside a small black bus, with bars on the windows, sat in the driveway. We were loaded on the bus and forced to sit in separate seats while they attached our cuffs to the chairs.

I wanted so badly to look at the faces of my friends, take some sort of comfort in their presences. But with my arms behind my back and chained to the seat, I couldn't move to see anyone. All I could do was rest my head against the window and watch as the bus began to move and Landry's started to grow smaller and smaller in the distance. I watched as we drove through the security gate and headed off down a pitch black road aligned with nothing but trees. The road would have been familiar if the sun was out, but at night it seemed ominous, just like our fate.

The stars in the sky above were beautiful but as much as I tried to focus on the twinkling stars all I could see was Toby's lifeless eyes and Betty's blood-drenched hair. The images were burned into my mind and although I hated those two, I would have never killed them. I didn't kill them, none of us did, and yet here we all were.

In the dark, it was hard to tell how much time had ticked by, seconds, minutes, hours, I had no idea. All I knew for sure was that it was still the same night since I was unable to sleep. I couldn't say the same for everyone though since I could clearly hear someone snoring in the back of the bus, I was guessing Declan.

Eventually, the bus turned down a dark road that was hidden in the trees. The road wasn't smooth and paved the way the main road had been, it was made from dirt and rock that caused me to bounce around in my seat. A few times my head came close to hitting the window whenever the wheels hit a hole in the ground and I cursed under my breath each time it happened. Luckily, the road didn't last long and we came to a stop in a pitch black clearing.

One of the guards went from seat to seat unchaining each of us, while the other stood at the front of the bus, gun in hand. The one at the front instructed us to form a single file line and once we did, he lead us out of the bus. I tried to look behind me at my friends, my family, but everything was so dark it made it hard to see their faces clearly. The only reason I could see the guards was due to the small reflectors stuck on their uniforms.

We were forced to wait in line next to the bus while the guards spoke to someone, most likely their boss, on their radio. It would have been a great time to look inspect our surroundings, but again, it was too dark. Even as my eyes adjusted to the dark, all I could make out were vague silhouettes in the distance.

"Okay, follow us," the guard with the gun instructed as he turned around to walk off into the night.

I was at the front of the line, which meant I needed to move in order to get everyone else to follow, but I was frozen. Everything was too dark, the guards were too quiet, the whole situation felt like we were being sent to the slaughterhouse. Chills ran down my spine despite the humid air, and my whole body began to shake. I didn't belong here, we didn't belong here, I just wanted to go back to my small solitary room. My heart was racing so hard I thought it was going to beat out of my chest.

"He said, move it," the second guard barked causing me to flinch.

When I didn't move, he growled a few curses under his breath and whistled for his friend with the gun. As we waited for him to reappear from the dark, a strong hand wrapped around my arm and gently pulled me back a couple feet.

"Don't worry, I'll take the lead," Wes whispered in my ear as he stepped in front.

I wasn't sure if it was the faint touch, his words, or just the fact that he was in front of me, but the shaking of my body slowly began to fade away. With Wes in the lead, our line began to move along, following the guards into the darkness. After a few short minutes, the lead guard stopped and held a hand into the air, indicating for all of us to stop as well. A whistle sounded in the distance, and the second guard let out three short whistles of his own. In a flash, large bright lights turned on all around us, lighting up the area like a football field on game night.

All of us threw our arms and hands over our faces, going from pitch black to bright as the sun was too much for our eyes to handle. It took several long minutes before my eyes adjusted to the light enough for me to remove my hands. I looked around, squinting, and could clearly see we were still in a clearing in the moods. Only now, there were giant lamp posts like ones in store parking lots lining the edges of the field, and a small log cabin in the middle.

The cabin would have looked like a normal hunting camp if it were for the giant lights and the fact that the cabin had no windows. Only a single door stood front and center, ominously, as we were instructed to walk towards it. The first guard reached it first and opened it to usher us in. Looking in, the cabin appeared to be completely black, not even the giant lights from outside were penetrating through.

Luckily, before we stepped in, a small light flickered on, revealing a man in a black suit. His face was void of any emotion as he greeted us, "Welcome, hellions."

~